JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s primary apportion is perplexing to gain on a hideous video of an American journalist’s beheading by a Islamic State nonconformist group, observant Hamas is an equally infamous enemy as he tries to convene general support in Israel’s quarrel in a Gaza Strip. But a comparisons between Hamas and Islamic State are being met with reservations by Israel’s allies and enemies alike.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always has prided himself on his ability to attract media attention. Netanyahu, who grew adult in a U.S. and speaks smooth English, mostly uses familiar quips, props or visible aids in open speeches or briefings to journalists.

A day after a Islamic State group, also famous as ISIS, posted a video of publisher James Foley’s killing, Netanyahu debuted his latest catchphrase: “Hamas is ISIS. ISIS is Hamas.” He uttered a aphorism during a news conference, on Twitter and even during his weekly Cabinet assembly Sunday.

As Israel’s troops debate opposite Hamas in Gaza nears a eighth week, Netanyahu is fighting an ascending dispute for general support. While a general village generally supports Israel’s right to urge itself opposite unenlightened rocket fire, a universe has grown increasingly worried with a scenes entrance out of Gaza.

Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes, along with tank and artillery fire, have killed some-more than 2,100 people and caused widespread destruction. U.N. and Palestinian officials contend many of a passed have been civilians, including some 500 children.

With absolute images of flattened buildings and passed children entrance out of Gaza any day, Israel’s evidence that a civilians have been used as “human shields” by Hamas seems to be creation small disproportion to perceptions abroad. Sixty-eight people have been killed on a Israeli side, all though 4 of them soldiers.

“There is finish agreement, roughly a consensus, that (the Islamic State group) is a grievous organization. But there is no general agreement that Hamas is a grievous organization,” maestro Israeli radio commentator Moti Kirschenbaum said.

Perhaps with this eminence in mind, Netanyahu has attempted to support a troops operation in Gaza not as a internal conflict, though as partial of a broader tellurian quarrel opposite a one Islamist threat.

“Many countries in a segment and a West are commencement to know that this is one front,” Netanyahu pronounced Sunday. “They are branches of a same tainted tree.”

He pronounced both groups had carried out extra-judicial killings, a curtsy to Hamas’ open sharpened Friday of suspected spies for Israel.

But his pairing of Hamas and a Islamic State organisation has strike bumps.

When asked about Netanyahu’s comparison final week, U.S. State Department mouthpiece Marie Harf pronounced a U.S. considers both groups militant organizations, though said: “I consider by clarification they are dual opposite groups. They have opposite leadership. And I’m not going to review them in that way.”

Netanyahu’s bureau posted a striking on Twitter of an design from a Islamic State video of publisher Foley kneeling successive to his killer, paring it with a 2012 print of a Hamas motorcyclist boring an indicted spy’s corpse. But it fast deleted a twitter amid universe critique over images of a video being common on amicable media.

In successive tweets, Netanyahu’s bureau transposed a design with a design of a black Islamic State group’s flag.

Israeli publisher Amir Tibon, essay on a news website Walla, called a comparison false since Israel has hold negotiations with Hamas over a long-term cease-fire, while a U.S. refuses to negotiate with a Islamic State organisation — and since Hamas has not beheaded American reporters in Gaza.

“Journalists who strayed from Hamas’s despotic line and reported on rocket glow during Israel, were threatened, and in impassioned cases, diminished from Gaza, though nothing of them finished their lives like James Foley,” Tibon said.

Hamas central Izzat Risheq pronounced James Foley was “executed in a heartless matter.”

Hamas is a “national ransom movement” whose army are “freedom fighters who are seeking a ransom of a Palestinian people and their polite rights,” Risheq said.

Since Hamas overran a domain in 2007, it has carefully attempted to make a deeply regressive chronicle of Islam and has during times placed some restrictions on women’s behavior. But it has refrained from flitting unconditional Islamic legislation and rescinded certain orders, apparently fearing a open backlash.

Hamas also claims it protects eremite minorities. But underneath a rule, Christians have felt embattled and their numbers have dwindled by emigration.

Yoram Schweitzer, a researcher during Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, pronounced distinct a Islamic State group, Hamas believes in postponing full doing of Islamic eremite law to a after theatre and has taken partial in approved elections, he said.

“In this clarity Hamas is some-more pragmatic,” Schweitzer said. But he combined that “Hamas, either ISIS or not ISIS, is a really heartless organization.”